CAS Strategic Direction Questions

Yvonne Palm

As AI, data science, and automation reshape insurance work, what is one strategic priority the CAS should pursue in the next three years to help CAS members remain indispensable to employers and expand opportunities for the next generation of actuaries?

The CAS should position actuaries as leaders in applying AI, data science, and automation to business and risk decisions, not simply as technical users of new tools. As routine analysis becomes commoditized, actuarial value will increasingly lie in professional judgement, ethical oversight, and the ability to translate advanced analytics into actionable insight. The CAS should equip members to apply these capabilities in broader, decision‑focused roles by increasing investment in practical education around AI governance, model risk, and decision science, embedding these within the credentialling pathway. This will ensure we remain trusted specialists who guide organizations through complexity and rapid change.

Avraham Adler

I believe the CAS must pursue implementing “AI use hygiene” into its basic and continued education. In my opinion, it is less important to know how to prompt an AI, especially given that there are specific LLMs trained on writing prompts for more general and powerful LLMs. More important is developing the experience to be able to recognize when the LLMs are hallucinating and when they are being gratuitously obsequious. Both of these are documented and well-known issues, and uncaught instances of either carry risk to our profession’s integrity.

Kendra Felisky

The CAS needs to prioritise enabling innovation combined with employer engagement. The CAS should equip our members to deliver better insights by providing continuing education via practical case studies and toolkits as well as professional guidance so they can competently provide the “value-add” for new automation. Then we need to make employers aware, such as by defining a clear skills framework that shows CAS actuaries can lead analytics transformation and explain results—not just run models. This will help keep our members indispensable while expanding opportunities for new actuaries.

James Guszcza

Nicole Harrington

The CAS should make career-long development for the data science, AI, and automation era a strategic priority by defining the skills actuaries need at each career stage and building practical learning pathways around them. That includes applied education, case studies, and guidance on using new tools responsibly in practical business decisions. Our value isn’t just technical expertise, but the ability to integrate a modern actuarial toolkit with rigor, judgment, and professionalism. If the CAS invests here, we will keep actuaries relevant and indispensable as insurance work evolves, expand opportunities for the next generation, and position the CAS to lead change.

Meagan Mirkovich

The CAS should focus on AI. As AI becomes more prevalent in the insurance industry it is imperative that the CAS and the membership learn how to incorporate it in their daily work and also learn how AI can help with their analyses. AI should be another tool in an actuary’s toolkit, and it is essential that the CAS focus on giving their members the skills necessary to employ AI in their daily work. This will also ensure that future candidates will have the expertise needed as they enter the workforce.

Mindy Moss

The CAS should prioritize equipping members to lead ethical AI and automation strategy, not merely react to technology shifts. Actuaries uniquely combine domain expertise, statistical rigor, and professional standards to guide ethical AI practices aligned with the ASOPs. By investing in education on governance and validation, the CAS can position members as trusted stewards who ensure outputs are explainable, fair, and used appropriately. CAS members’ regulatory fluency enables them to identify efficiency gains while protecting consumers, markets, and public trust. Advancing ethical leadership ensures actuaries remain indispensable to employers and expands credible, high-impact opportunities for the next generation of actuaries.

Elizabeth Rizcko

The CAS should make it a priority to build a modern AI and Automation Competency Framework that truly reflects where our work is heading. As AI reshapes pricing, reserving, underwriting, and more, our members need clear, practical skills that keep them indispensable to employers. A CAS-led framework paired with well-designed learning pathways, would help actuaries lead adoption efforts, strengthen collaboration with our business partners, and reinforce our role in governance and judgment. For students and early-career professionals, it would offer an effective roadmap into emerging roles and position the CAS as the thought leader for AI-era risk expertise.

Jeremy Shoemaker

Actuaries must cultivate essential skills not only to utilize AI effectively but also to become thought leaders in AI across the insurance sector and beyond. While technical expertise is crucial, it alone is not enough for actuaries to lead. The CAS should offer training in communication and leadership to empower actuaries to become trusted advisors in this evolving landscape. As many actuaries recognize, analytical insights have limited value if they cannot be clearly communicated to stakeholders.

Yvonne Palm

I would advocate for continued evolution towards a more flexible early‑stage credentialing pathway, while preserving rigor in the later exams. Recent improvements, including increased exam frequency, have meaningfully enhanced the candidate experience and should continue. However, candidates are often required to choose between the CAS and SOA (or other relevant bodies) too early. Globally, employers and students often view actuarial credentials interchangeably, making early specialization a barrier to CAS entry. The CAS’s true differentiation emerges in Exams 5-9. Expanding shared preliminary pathways and alternative on-ramps before specialization would improve employer relevance, broaden access, and support long-term growth.

Avraham Adler

I would like to see the ability for the online exams to be administered at a candidate’s employment location and not be required to go to an “official testing center”. Historically, we have allowed FCASs to proctor the pencil-and-paper exams. I would support researching the technology to see if it is feasible and secure to allow them to proctor the online exams as well.

Kendra Felisky

I firmly believe that the CAS pathway should focus on P&C actuarial concepts—not basic education which candidates can get elsewhere; those without it will not pass future exams anyway. CAS credentialing should therefore concentrate on P&C actuarial concepts. Frictional costs will be reduced by not checking waivers or grades on courses, etc. This approach will preserve the rigor that we are so proud of while improving the credentialing experience by making every requirement clearly relevant to P&C work and to what employers need from CAS candidates.

James Guszcza

Nicole Harrington

I would advocate for continuing the CAS’s progress toward a more applied credentialing pathway, while maintaining rigor in core actuarial fundamentals. Employers need technical strength; they need actuaries who can communicate clearly, exercise judgment, and apply advanced analytics. We should include more case-based and practice-oriented assessments where appropriate, especially where written exams may not be the best measure. As AI becomes more common, the CAS should evaluate how AI can support candidate learning, while ensuring candidates still demonstrate independent and clear reasoning. The integration of application and rigor would improve the candidate experience and reinforce the credential’s value to employers.

Meagan Mirkovich

The introduction of the PCPA requirement gives candidates an opportunity to work on a real-world predictive modeling example outside of the traditional examination environment. This enables candidates to demonstrate their knowledge while also providing them with the context of what is involved in a traditional work product. This is one evolution this should continue to be explored to provide real world scenarios that also evaluate the candidates’ knowledge of the subject matter while allowing them to use software that increases their knowledge and makes them valuable to their employer on future work projects.

Mindy Moss

The CAS should continue to ground the credentialing pathway in the competencies that are most important for practicing actuaries, while reducing unnecessary friction for candidates. Structured re-evaluation of exam content ensures that our education stays relevant. However, content updates must be paired with transparency. When material is added, removed, or reframed, the CAS should clearly communicate what is changing and why to candidates, employers, and volunteers alike. As text references are added, the CAS should expand the release of past exam questions, particularly for post-2019 content. Past questions reduce guesswork, clarify expectations, and allow candidates to focus on mastering concepts.

Elizabeth Rizcko

Right now, the exam pathway is high-stakes and often opaque. I fully support a rigorous education system, but we also need to modernize credentialing to reflect today’s environment. Exploring a more modular structure—where skills-based components can be completed, banked, and recognized along the way—would create a more adaptable process at a time when change is accelerating. For candidates, it would offer a more humane and relevant experience while still ensuring deep understanding. For employers, it would strengthen relevance by better aligning demonstrated competencies with the demands of modern actuarial work.

Jeremy Shoemaker

The CAS should accelerate how quickly its syllabi and exams adapt to technological change. Past updates, such as adding predictive modeling and enterprise risk management, lagged behind industry needs. To stay relevant, the CAS should more rapidly incorporate AI and related data-science topics into the credentialing pathway while pruning outdated content on a regular cycle. The organization can leverage modern tools, including AI, to make the annual review and revision process more efficient and evidence-based, preserving exam rigor while improving candidate preparedness and employer relevance.

Yvonne Palm

With the pace of change accelerating and risks becoming increasingly interconnected, the CAS should invest more aggressively in research and professional education focused on cross-risk scenario analysis. Climate, cyber, AI liability, and fairness are all critical areas, yet many actuarial frameworks still assess them in isolation. The CAS can lead by developing practical research, case studies, and education that help actuaries quantify interconnected exposures, stress-test portfolios, and support strategic decisions under uncertainty. Advancing integrated risk capabilities will strengthen casualty practice and reinforce the CAS’s distinct value as the professional organization for complex risk.

Avraham Adler

Clearly, the safe and effective inclusion of AI in our work. While improving the accuracy of these models for actuarial applications would be beneficial, a higher priority is better understanding the pitfalls in their use, reducing them where possible at the model level, and educating actuaries to use them in a way that maintains or even enhances our profession’s integrity.

Kendra Felisky

I believe that CAS’s distinct value will be strengthened by making recognition of the CAS P&C credential a key priority. We compete not just in North America, but worldwide, with other actuarial societies (many with P&C tracks). Yet employers and regulators often do not distinguish among the credentials - leading them to not recognise CAS members for our insights into P&C problems or support students in selecting the CAS pathway. The CAS should promote employer/regulator familiarity with the CAS by demonstrating what is distinct about CAS credentialling and how it improves real business decisions.

James Guszcza

Nicole Harrington

I would prioritize applied research and education that helps actuaries answer a critical question: not just can we use AI and advanced analytics, but how should we use them responsibly in casualty practice? We should invest in guidance on where these tools create value, where they introduce risk, and how to address bias, validation, governance, and uncertainty. AI will change how we work, but the power lies in how actuaries assess, explain, and apply these tools with discernment, accountability, and an understanding of their broader impact. Investing here will strengthen the CAS’s distinct value and ensure members remain trusted experts.

Meagan Mirkovich

As a member of the Leadership Development Working Group, one item that we see other leaders interested in are workshops on soft skills. These are the skills necessary to help achieve the next leadership position such as strategic thinking, effective communication, or influencing. Helping CAS membership to develop as leaders, whether new in their career or working toward C-suite level positions, should be a professional education priority that the CAS should invest in more aggressively as the CAS can impact the entire membership.

Mindy Moss

Over the next three years, the CAS should invest in research on equity, fairness, and accessibility in property and casualty insurance. As data, automation, and AI deepen segmentation, actuaries must ensure innovation does not unintentionally exclude vulnerable populations. Research can help define fairness beyond traditional risk classification, evaluate disparate impacts, and design pricing and coverage approaches that balance accuracy with social resilience. This work positions CAS members at the intersection of analytics, public trust, and ethics. By developing rigorous, practical frameworks, the CAS can equip future actuaries to expand access to coverage while preserving the profession’s credibility and long-term relevance.

Elizabeth Rizcko

The CAS should invest more aggressively in applied research and education around AI-enabled actuarial workflows—especially model governance, automation oversight, and human-in-the-loop judgment. AI is overhyped in the near term, with few production-level solutions today, but its long-term impact on our profession will be profound. Actuaries need practical guidance, case studies, and hands-on learning that translate emerging technology into real practice. By focusing on areas where actuaries add unique value—risk judgment, governance, and responsible automation—the CAS can strengthen its distinct role and help members lead the transformation rather than react to it.

Jeremy Shoemaker

While the CAS already supports research and working groups, it can further elevate its thought leadership in property & casualty by creating rapid-response teams that produce timely, high-quality white papers on emerging issues. These standing teams would convene experts to analyze developments, such as proposed or enacted tort reforms, and quickly assess their likely impacts on reserving, pricing, claims, and capital. This wouldn’t need to be limited to North America as producing these brief, actionable reports on a global scale would demonstrate the CAS’s role as the preeminent actuarial voice in international general insurance and provide clients and employers with immediate, practical guidance when fast-moving legal, regulatory, or market changes occur.